


Hungry

by Chicklet_Girl



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-06-20
Updated: 2006-06-20
Packaged: 2017-10-17 03:00:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/172211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chicklet_Girl/pseuds/Chicklet_Girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rodney McKay: A life in food.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hungry

**Author's Note:**

> Written for **scribblinlenore** 's **Utterly Egocentric Summer of Love Challenge** on LiveJournal; my prompt song was "Hungry" by Paul Revere and the Raiders (tricorner hats = hhhhhhot). This title dovetailed nicely with a story idea I'd had in my head for a few months. The first part may sound familiar because in a fit of challenge-deadline desperation, I used it for my **atlantisbasics** story, [When I Had Once Called Him In.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/171424) Yes, I've totally plagiarized myself. Also, this is less a story than a series of vignettes. And it's unbeta'd because I sort of didn't realize I would be out of town until the night before the challenge was due.

It isn’t that Mum and Dad are bad parents, really; it’s just that sometimes they argue so long they don’t realize that nobody’s fed him and Jeannie. Rodney learns early on what it feels like when his blood sugar is dropping to dangerous levels, and even a little kid (which Rodney is not – he’s in Grade Two) can get an apple from the basket on the kitchen table. Dishing out applesauce for Jeannie is almost as easy. (She doesn’t like the skin, and Rodney can’t peel an apple for her because he’s forbidden to touch any knife, anywhere, anytime, for any reason. He hopes that changes soon, because he’ll be required to dissect things in a few years, and he’ll definitely need to use a knife for that.)

Cold cereal is next, because anyone can pour milk over corn flakes, even if putting the bag of milk in the pitcher is challenging the first time he does it. And then peanut butter sandwiches, of course. Jeannie wants pickles on hers, but even Rodney – who will eat almost anything that won’t kill him – can’t do that to peanut butter. Jeannie has to eat her pickles off the plate, and yes, Rodney _is_ the boss of her, at least until Mum comes back from storming out of the house.

***************

It takes Rodney a long time to realize why he likes restaurants. It’s because when they go to one, his parents can make it through a whole meal without having a fight. Rodney is always careful to ask if what he’s ordering has citrus in it, because sometimes they don’t say it on the menu. One time the waitress doesn’t know that the apples in the pie were tossed with lemon juice to keep them from turning brown. On the way home, his throat starts swelling shut and his face gets puffy. Dad goes straight to the hospital and they’re barely in time for an epinephrine injection.

Rodney stays overnight and gets to eat red Jell-O, and when they leave the next morning, his mother gives him a Spirograph kit, which Rodney likes because he can always predict the patterns, no matter which size ring he uses. He sits at the dining room table making a smaller red design inside a larger green one and just barely hears his father in the kitchen, blaming his mother for the allergy attack. Rodney wants to point out it was the waitress’s fault, but he’s tired and achy. And anyway, he probably wouldn’t be able to say what he really means.

***************

Restaurants also are cool because they’re filled with people who cook because they like it, and they like making food for other people. Rodney doesn’t really enjoy cooking. He can do it if he has to, but he’s learned to avoid it because it takes time from his work. And then there was the vaguely sulky way his mother worked in the kitchen until he left home for college, like she’d rather be doing almost anything besides roasting a chicken for her family.

In a restaurant, you order food and they make it for you. And even if they don’t particularly want to do it, they have to pretend they don’t resent you for being around.

***************

The best, though, is hospital food. Rodney likes it precisely because it’s bland. In his experience, the more exotic a cuisine, the more likely it is to contain lemons or oranges or limes or pomelos or – the worst! – blood oranges, which really could kill him and also _are the color of blood_.

But hospital oatmeal can’t kill him, and with enough sugar and milk, he can mask the gluey texture and the lack of salt in the cooking water. The pancakes are better, even if no cafeteria has pure maple syrup available, which is more sad than maddening, like these people don’t understand one of the fundamental principles of _life_.

However, Rodney will admit the eggs always leave something to be desired. It’s because the cafeterias always use those low-cholesterol egg substitutes. He compensates by drinking enough coffee to keep a sloth awake for three days.

***************

But then there’s Margaret, who wants to cook _for him_ , who asks for a list of everything citrus so she won’t use any of it when she makes dinner on Friday night. Rodney thinks maybe she’s trying to impress him, which isn’t necessary -- she got an A in organic chemistry (Rodney’s roommate had gone into the bathroom to cry when he was studying for the final). And even more impressive, she might want to have sex with him, because she’s making dinner at her apartment and there’s no planned event afterwards. (The campus is lousy with free, boring events, many of which Rodney has been dragged to instead of getting to have sex.)

Dinner is very good, actually, some kind of chicken thing with a sauce that’s very rich and completely citrus-free, and then Margaret pulls him into the bedroom, and they’re lying on her paisley-print cotton bedspread, and it’s _amazing_.

After that, Rodney begins to really appreciate cooking.

***************

John, of course, can’t cook. Rodney’s pretty sure John’s cooking skills top out at turning on an oven and then not burning a frozen pizza into a disc of solid carbon. But that’s okay, because there’s a staff to cook for them, a staff Rodney hounds constantly about preparing ingredient lists. Also, they have the MREs, which are like hospital food but with the added bonus of a list of ingredients on the outside of the package. (Rodney will admit this to no one, but he also gets a kick out of the chemical cooker that heats the meals as needed.)

John doesn’t need to cook because he’s saved everyone’s life about seventeen thousand times, and he comes back from missions smelling of smoke and tasting like salt. Sometimes he smells like soap and hair gel and his skin just tastes like _him_ , and those are the times Rodney likes it a bit slow.

But they always have to be so careful. There’s a recipe for their nights together, and it’s not a long one with an overnight marinade and a few hours in the oven. Rodney has plans for their next trip to Earth, plans to spread John out on a big, expensive hotel bed and use lips and teeth and tongue to bring him just to the boiling point, then back down to a slow simmer, over and over, until John begs. But just a little bit, because Rodney isn’t _mean_ , he just wants some payback for all of the times John has made him lose it completely. And he wants to do it during the day, with the sun pouring in, warming them from the outside while they create their own heat inside.

After, Rodney will order room service and fall into his old routine of quizzing the staff about all of the ingredients, homing in on words like _clementine_ and _tangy_ while watching a damp-haired John walk around with a big white towel around his hips because he thinks the hotel robes are ridiculous. When the food comes, they’ll sit and comment on its quality and savor, and then they’ll talk about all of the things they’re going to buy and bring back home.


End file.
